The number of traffic police officers on patrol across Nottinghamshire's has fallen by 56 per cent, according to latest statistics.

The force has defended these figures, saying that while there has been a reduction, officers are taking on dual roles to combat traffic offences and firearms officers are taking on road duties to make up for the reduction.

The Press Association submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to all 45 territorial forces asking how many dedicated traffic officers they have compared with five and 10 years ago.

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The numbers across Nottinghamshire have fallen from 138 to 61 in the past 10 years.

A spokesman for the police told the Post: “Police forces nationally have faced challenging times and had to respond to significant reductions in their budgets in the period looked at in these figures.

“In order to meet those challenges in this region and to ensure that we continue to provide safe, secure and efficient roads, the East Midlands Operational Support Service (EMOpSS) was created to provide a more streamlined and proactive roads policing resource across Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire.

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“EMOpSS provides specialist teams deployed as tactical roads policing teams, road and armed policing teams (a dual role for firearms and roads policing) as well as a serious collision investigation unit providing a specialist response to victims of serious and fatal collisions.

“While the figures show a reduction in dedicated traffic officers covering Nottinghamshire they do not take into account the significant number of officers who have dual firearms and roads policing roles who make a significant contribution.

“As firearms incidents are thankfully relatively rare, much of these officers' time is available for deployment to roads policing functions, and over 50 per cent of regional roads policing enforcement activity is undertaken by the dual role officers.

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"Where necessary, due to our collaborative working model, at times of increased demand Nottinghamshire can also draw on resources from the wider collaboration.

"Road casualties in Nottinghamshire remain at thankfully low levels, and one of the lowest in the East Midlands region.

"During 2016 we had a small increase in fatalities (three percent - 27 in 2015 and 28 in 2016) and a very small decrease in seriously injured victims of road traffic collisions.

“As with all areas of policing, we continue to monitor the impact of our deployment of officers and staff to assess our effectiveness in achieving our intended outcomes."

However, residents have expressed concern over police officers doing more than one job.

Jordan Webster, 21, of Sherwood, said: "We can’t have police officers doing too many roles. If the police are covering more responsibilities, the focus won’t be on keeping the city safe – on dealing with serious crimes."

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And Ben Lyons, of Toton, added: "It might affect you more in the city centre; personally I haven’t noticed anything."

But the AA said the decline across all forces could see more drivers getting away with crimes.

A spokesman said: "We need more cops in cars, not fewer.

"The UK has among the safest roads in Europe, although the number of people killed and seriously injured on our roads has started to rise after many years of steady decline. Maybe there is a link?"

Responding to the figures, the Home Office said effective road policing is not just dependent on dedicated traffic officers, while the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) pointed out that all officers were able to help traffic specialists.